The a-ha moment came a few years ago when I was asked by a freeze-dried food company to taste test a few of their foods and review them. I tried one of their berry powders and thought, “Why can’t I do this with my dehydrated fruit?”. So the experimentation began, and a use came from our dehydrated berries.

HOW TO DEHYDRATE BLACKBERRIES

Before you get started: Always preheat your dehydrator when you begin to prep your produce, and dehydrate at the appropriate temperatures. Running at 160F doesn’t make things dehydrate faster, it just promotes case hardening, which you don’t want! Have you ever tested the temperature on your dehydrator?

Quick Instructions to Dehydrate Blackberries

Wash blackberries then allow to air dry on towels or use a salad spinner.

Layout on dehydrator trays.

Dehydrate for 24-36 hrs at 135F / 57 C

Blackberries are done when they shatter in your hand.

Grind to make powder.

Store in an airtight container.

PREPARING BLACKBERRIES

Soak blackberries – in a 1:3 water to vinegar solution. I let them soak for five minutes or so to be sure the vinegar gets a chance to really work.

Rinse blackberries – I think rinse the berries in cool water, thoroughly. Be sure to pick out any blackberries that may already have been compromised, or any bits you don’t want in your container or dehydrator trays.

Dry blackberries – I lay out the blackberries on tea towels – rag ones because the juice can stain if the berries are breaking at all.*

TIP ►►If you are going straight to your dehydrator with your blackberries, you can lay them out on trays, set them to 145F for one hour to get rid of the surface moisture, then settle back to 125-135F and allow them to go through the full dehydrating process.

Dehydrate Blackberries

1. Lay blackberries out on dehydrator trays

I use an Excalibur dehydrator, but any dehydrator that has temperature controls will work for you. Be sure they don’t touch, and give them plenty of space to allow good airflow.

2. Dry Blackberries at 125-135F

Set your dehydrator to 135F and prepare to dry for approximately 18-30 hours. It will depend on the plumpness of your blackberries (I tend to cut really big ones down in half), and the humidity levels of your home. This batch took about 28-29 hours for me at 125F. I choose to do mine on the cooler side to prevent case hardening.

After 10 hours, my blackberries had begun to look more like raspberries!

Hitting the 22-hour mark, this is what they begin looking like:

3. Test for Doneness

I always make sure that the piece of fruit or herb or any product that I dehydrate is fully cooled before checking for doneness. Many items will firm up even more as they cool down, so I don’t want to check and assume they aren’t ready simply because they react differently when warm.

How Do I Know My Dehydrated Blackberries Are Done?

Your dehydrated blackberries will shatter and sound like crinkling paper when you rub them between your fingertips.

Can I Over Dehydrate Blackberries?

You can never over-dry blackberries, but you can burn them, so be sure not to set them too high like I did recently, and lose a whole batch of blackberries. I just wasn’t paying attention, and the smaller blackberries just dried into little rocks that were not useful.

What Dehydrator Should I Use?

One that you’ll actually use is the answer!

I love my Excalibur Dehydrator. It does a ton of food and is a hard worker. However, it does take up a ton of counter space, which is at a premium for many. It runs night and day for weeks during some seasons of our lives. It’s easy to clean and maintain, and is a wonderful machine. Keep your eye out and you can often get them under $200.

I also love the Nesco FD-80 as a more moderately prices machine. It is sturdy as the plastic trays are thicker, firmer plastic than on many of the low to mid-range priced machines. It’s a top-down fan, so you’ll want to rotate your trays occasionally, but the motor is strong and it is a workhorse! And the great thing is that it is expandable! You can remove trays if you want (though I always just interspersed an empty tray if I had extras), or you can add trays to make it do more. Just remember you’ll want to rotate the more you add.

How to Store Dehydrated Blackberries

Because the fruit is fragile, I recommend storing in airtight containers with moisture absorbers included. If you want to store long term, you could add an oxygen absorber equal to the size container you’re using. Or you can vacuum seal (see my video here on how to do this). We stored them in smaller mason jars that we could rotate through.

However, we have found, over time, that we just don’t like them anymore. So this is what we do with them instead:

HOW TO MAKE BLACKBERRY POWDER

Now that you’ve learned how to dehydrate blackberries, it’s time to take the next step!

Once your blackberries are completely dry, allow them to rest for a little while. They can cool off to room temperature and you can double check that they are fully dehydrated.

Crush your blackberries

I crush by hand, then run the bits through a fine mesh strainer. This process is a bit more tedious than using a machine, but sometimes I just like the process.

Place blackberries in a zip-top bag, use a protected surface, and pound the blackberries with a meat tenderizer (I use this one from Oxo Good Grips), or use a rolling pin. Just remember, you want to protect your wood surface or wood rolling pin because blackberry seeds can cause damage with that much force. That’s why I prefer something metal and hard.

Run your crushed blackberries through a fine mesh strainer (perhaps like this one). It took awhile to work the blackberries through. You’ll be left with a few bits of seeds and some rough bits of the inner berry if it had a firm core.

Just a note: I do not use a larger blender to do this work. Blackberry seeds are very hard, and I don’t want to damage my blender by nicking the blades or scratching the jar. I also don’t want to continue blending so much to get those big pieces that I ruin the powder by blending too much. So I choose to use the smaller coffee grinder that does an excellent job, even though I have to do it in smaller batches.

Then run your ground pieces through the strainer. You want to be sure to get out all of the seed particles! Not only do they make your powder taste bitter, you just don’t want to mess with cracking a tooth!

VIEW A QUICK VIDEO ON THE PROCESS

How to Store Blackberry Powder

Small Quantities of Blackberry Powder

Store fruit powders in air-tight containers.

I use these smaller containers that I rotate through to do things like yogurt additives

Large Quantities of Blackberry Powder

If I make a larger quantity, I can store that in small mylar bags that have been vacuum sealed, along with a moisture protector called a desiccant pack – which is silica gel – that helps absorb any moisture that might be in the bag. It is simply a precaution, because your blackberries were fully dehydrated, right?

However, at the time of posting, I didn’t have a sufficient quantity to show you how to do it. I simply will put the powder into a zip top bag along with a desiccant pack, then insert it into a mylar bag, then run through the vacuum sealer to store. The reason I use the zip-top bag is to keep the powder from getting sucked into the vacuum sealer.

Oh, who am I kidding … it’s to keep me from spilling it all over the place 🙂

You can also use resealable mylar bags that you roll to release the air from, much like you might do with a zip-top bag if you don’t have a vacuum sealer. It won’t be completely vacuum-sealed, but pretty close to it!

Not as easily – they would work better if they were freeze-dried instead of dehydrated. There is still about 10-20% moisture in fruits that are heavily moisture laden, like blueberries, and so your final powder may have a few gummy areas. You could remedy this by throwing the powder back into the dehydrator between sheets of parchment paper or liners to dry it out before storing. I think of blueberries like raisins when properly dried, and don’t find powdering them to be worth doing. But freeze-dried – works great.

It didn’t worked for me 🙁 My blackberries went to the mushy phase, to the rock solid phase, they didn’t shatter when I pressed them 🙁 It’s a shame, I was really excited about the powder. I have a different dehydrator.

I was excited to try making this blackberry powder as you mention it doesn’t require a $2K freeze dryer and that you can remove the seeds, which I can’t have. (All other recipes have you heat dry the berries to rocks then grind up the rocks, seeds and all, and powdered seeds are 10x worse for me!) However I’ve dried 18 trays now and no matter what I do they all just turn out unusable goo and rocks! (Not a big loss as the berries were free and I’ll vacuume seal & freeze the rocks for future juice making, just disappointed.) The berries are fresh, firm, clean, and thoroughly dried off. (Though I tried a tray of berries that weren’t washed and 1 that wasn’t dried off too. No difference.) The temp is correct (135f), but I’ve tried temps up to 200f just to be sure it’s not that. I’ve tried leaving the door open during drying for more air circulation and/or lower temp. I’ve tried taking them out at what looks like the right time, too early, and too late. I’ve tried using the dehydrator, oven, and toaster oven. I’ve tried drying a 2nd time after they cool. Tried both freezing them after drying and freezing them before drying. (Don’t freeze them before unless you want to dry puddles of juice.) Tried refrigerating them first. Tried warming them first. Tried different acid levels in the prewash. Tried bigger plumper berries and smaller seedier berries. Tried cutting them in half first (much worse!) Tried turning each berry over part way through drying… Nothing works! Heat always makes them turn to sticky mush then harden into cooked rocks. How do you get them to stay fluffy and crispy enough to crumble into powder without using a $2K freeze dryer?!?

I’m really sorry you’re having trouble with your blackberries. I assure you I didn’t use a freeze dryer – I don’t own one. I wish I had a good answer for you. There are so many reasons why batches may not work – Temp too high (keep it low), the berries may not have been in season, thus low moisture; they have varying sugar levels which react to heat differently. I’ve had it happen with raspberries before, and it is really frustrating for it to happen.

My only suggestion is to perhaps blend them and make a fruit leather and then powder the leather. I do that with watermelon and bananas and pumpkin – it may be easier for you with the blackberries.

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I'm Darcy! I've spent the last twenty years learning how to stretch our budget to meet the needs of our growing family, all while making a home be a space more than just a place to sleep and eat. I believe in having a purpose in all aspects of our lives - including the pantry and our home. Let me show you how to create a pantry and home that has greater purpose... Read More…

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